The Heist: How Grand Theft Auto V gets away with murder

Series' latest game dances between outrage and satire on violence and gender issues.

The game's treatment of dogs as faithful companions, at least, is spot on.

The week of Grand Theft Auto V's launch could have been a controversy cash-in for the publicity lovers at Rockstar Games. The game's checklist of features reads like Tipper Gore's personal hell: savage murders, psychotic heroes, strip clubs, an interactive torture sequence, and enough swears and offensive terms to do George Carlin proud.

And, the day before the game's launch, a man shot up a Navy yard in Washington DC. Shortly afterward, reporters dug up comments from acquaintances about the shooter's predilection for “violent video games.” We've seen where that combination can lead.

Yet largely, GTA V has been denied its relatively worthy spot on the pop-culture controversy throne. Its most unsavory bits didn't budge Miley Cyrus' twerking off of any trending lists, even as the game raked in billions.

What gives? Has the American public given up on condemning video games? Has the games industry made enough mainstream headway to lump GTA into the general R-rated slew of entertainment options? Has the ghost of Jack Thompson finally evaporated into a fine mist?

Hard to say, considering how subjective gaming's reputation really is. Instead, it's worth considering that Rockstar, in spite of some uneven and troubling writing decisions, also took some responsible ideas to heart over the five years since the previous GTA release, and that the press, in general and in kind, has advanced just as much over those years to change the tenor of the resulting conversation.

Warning: The rest of this article contains significant spoilers for some plot and character points in Grand Theft Auto V.

GTA V is not shy about walking the line between outrage and satire, though it's admittedly a line the game walks in an inebriated state. The worst example comes from GTA V's navel-gazing obsession with gaming culture. Bratty son Jimmy is overheard in one sequence playing an online video game and shouting piles of triggering garbage over his headset: “If there was a rape button, I'd press that, unless you're a faggot and you like that, in which case I'd just rape your mom, instead!”

Jimmy's father, protagonist Michael, walks in soon after to awkwardly admonish his son—”threatening to molest your online buddies is bullshit!”—providing a pretty direct commentary from Rockstar on one strain of modern gamer in the process. Very little about Jimmy is projected in a positive or even likeable way; the guy's a scummy cipher meant to send up some of the more annoying traits of many gamers. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but there has to be a better way to mock the violent homophobia of stereotypical online shooter fans than to whack the topic over the head with a baseball bat.

Enlarge/ The infamous "torture scene" is pretty hard to endure, despite an ostensibly anti-torture message thrown in at the end.

Even worse is the game's “anti-torture” segment, which has players revel in painfully applying battery cables and pliers on a poor, tied-up man. The sequence ends by dismissing the whole affair with the flippant summary of “torture is only for the torturer,” as if that turns such twisted exploitation into a noble statement. It's not.

Yet in many ways, GTA V exercises a notable mix of restraint and silliness in chiding pop culture. Facebook is spoofed in “Lifefinder,” a social network company that loathes its customers, has no actual business plan, and revels in absorbing as much user data as possible (Subtle!). Radio broadcasts repeatedly mention government overreach and NSA-level spying with a dry shrug of the shoulders.

A billboard advertising perfume tells people to “smell like a bitch,” but it's more of a spoof of shock-value advertising and companies using French words to seem fancier than they are (the perfume in question is called “Le Chien,” or “The Dog”). Another billboard mocks the desperation of cash-for-gold schemes, begging people to rob their grandmothers and take their teeth to sell to "Cash For Dead Dreams."

Women’s issues

On a subtler scale—not that Grand Theft Auto is incredibly subtle—there's the gray-area disappointment of how GTA V handles women. The game's three protagonists are men, and the few notable women aren't particularly strong-willed: a mobster's wife who shrugs her shoulders at being kidnapped; a protagonist's wife and daughter who are largely defined in the game by shallow sexual behavior; and another protagonist's old flame, hobbled by drugs and eager to offer sexual favors.

Series co-writer and co-creator Dan Houser recently explained to UK's The Guardian that GTA V's exclusion of playable women was not intentional from the outset, but rather the result of an “organic” plot that developed over time, and furthermore, that "the concept of being masculine was so key to this story."

The thing is, it doesn't take long in Los Santos to realize that the “masculine” concepts of GTA V's plot come across mostly as pathetic. Trevor's ongoing issues with trust and friendship, though hyperbolized by way of crime sprees and murders, mirror the kinds of faltering friendships that many men may face as they grow older. Same can be said for Michael losing touch with his own family or Franklin finding that his strides toward a bigger, better life end with him feeling like a broken record, repeating the same shit no matter how hard he tries.

These men put on as much bravado as possible, but they all inevitably descend into childish, petulant behavior. There's no truth in saying women “dodged a bullet” by avoiding such cynical headline roles in GTA V—there's room for at least one Sons of Anarchy-caliber Gemma in this wild world—but the game is at least consistent about painting “masculinity” in depressing tones.

While none of the game's women are playable, they are, in the biggest turn for the series, raised to something beyond object status, at least in interactive terms. I touched upon this notion in my review, when I pointed out the inability to hire a call girl as you drive through Los Santos' streets. The game also removes dating and sex mini-games as a means of earning either currency or bravado; there's no required mission in which you press buttons to mechanically turn a woman on.

The same can be said for how the game treats cultural stereotypes. At its worst, GTA V revels in the fake-macho nonsense of mainstream 90s gangsta rap. Still, it does so in a way that's authentic to South Cali slang and doesn't stand out starkly compared to treatments of meth-heavy hillbillies or Chinese gangbangers. The game's fake Los Angeles puts every ethnicity in the crosshairs of both plot and violence without resorting to kneejerk slurs or stereotypes (with the exception of white men reacting awkwardly to Franklin a little too often).

The biggest issue that I've found in my 30+ hours of play is the private dances at strip clubs, in which players can convince a dancer to go home with them by holding down a button to “touch” the dancer when a bouncer isn't looking. Get away with enough touches, and a meter fills up so much that the girl says, “Wanna go home with me?” Accept the offer, and you can drive the stripper home, hear some moaning sounds, and leave the apartment. Two steps forward, one giant lap dance back.

This highlights that GTA V is first and foremost a game that depends on how it is played. The enormity of the open-world structure means that players can forgo the plot to focus instead on utter chaos. Yet Rockstar still asserts direction and commentary within even the most chaotic GTA V playthroughs.

Rockstar keeps tabs on players mainly through random encounters—blips that pop up on the nearby map, when appropriate, to ask for errands, rides, or even “stop that thief!” moments. In these, everybody's a despicable dog; if anything, the Houser brothers that wrote the game have a real hangup with relationships. This is evidenced by many random pick-ups in which my passengers—men and women alike—whined about cheating partners before confessing their own poor decisions. In another encounter, recounted particularly well by Kotaku's Stephen Totilo, players pick up a woman on the wrong end of a robbery who ends up being one of the most poignant and troubled female characters in the game.

Totilo goes on to talk about his desire for a female-first GTA, ignoring the fact that for years, most similar open-world series—Red Dead, Red Faction, Infamous, Far Cry, Just Cause—have stuck with leading men. (To its credit, Saint's Row at least lets players create a female lead and battle alongside lady protagonists, and Assassin's Creed had a woman star in its PlayStation Vita spin-off.)

It's a fair enough request, echoed by more than a few writers over the past week, and it's an elevated perspective as opposed to the default "this game is offensive" tack. That line of thought sees men and women alike coming out and saying, "It's not the evil that we detest; it's the pronouns."

And other writers have gone for even higher-level critiques. The Guardian's Helen Lewis had plenty to say about the game's takes on gender roles, but her editorial was invested in balancing that topic with just as many mentions of exploitative violence. Leigh Alexander stared the game dead in the eyes and accused it of not being "open" at all, but rather stuck to the rails and limits of a 16-year-old series and its expectations.

In the end, this Grand Theft Auto doesn't get away with murder by avoiding the pop culture boiling point. Instead, it has attracted more accomplices and bigger dreamers, cresting with a pop culture now defined by scumbags on all sides of the gender and ethnicity aisle. Women and outsiders may not always be full players on GTA V's side of the screen, but they're responding on the other, and with guns blazing, at that.

Promoted Comments

GTA V is more than just a video game. It is, by way of its representation of violence and glorification therein, the greatest advertisement *against* violence and objectification. While the bang-bang, boom-boom nature of the action is exciting, the game doesn't shy away from showing the consequences for their actions. The sad, hollow lives led by the "protagonists", while seeming glitzy and exciting on the surface, resonate loudly with how very empty they are.

Trevor is alone. Michael is alone. Franklin is alone. Even though they have each other, they aren't enough bullets or brass knuckles that can make these men truly happy.

I'm roughly 60% of the way through the campaign and I've found the gaming portion to be absolutely brilliant, and the story to be doubly so. Yes, you can bang a hooker. Yes, you can steal a military chopper or tank and go on a killing spree.

But the first time you find yourself obeying traffic laws and deciding to just head home instead of to the strip club because it's been a long day... that's when you realize what Rockstar has done. They've created something special here, and despite the fact that it may not be "open" or "inclusive" it still deserves to be played by everyone (over the age of 18).

You are taking this game way too seriously. NOTHING in it is to be taken seriously. Men and women are both treated unfairly in it (along with pretty much every culture, ethnicity, and race).

And also, the parts with Jimmy playing video games were HYSTERICAL because they are so, so true...and when Michael threw the chair through the TV I felt like the rage of every person who has ever played vs such people on XBL was behind the weight of that chair.

Oh, by the way, we're in a prolonged recession which historically tend to see rises in crime rates. Something about current culture is causing us to turn less to violence. Maybe it's getting male tendency for violence worked out against electrons instead of people.

This is another example of Parents not parenting when they buy their kid a game like this that has an ESRB Rating of Mature...

Games like this exist for adults who can, generally speaking, know the difference between a video game and reality and know that what you do while playing in the game is not what you would or should do in the real world.

I take no issue with violent video games that are rated in such a way as to be a no-brainer for parents.

"The biggest issue that I've found in my 30+ hours of play is the private dances at strip clubs,"

Why is this an issue?

Because in 21st century video games, it is a societal imperative that ghetto gang-bangers be portrayed as sensitive, nonjudgmental, bisexual, community leaders. So that up-and-coming wanna-be ghetto gang-bangers playing the game will be reformed into progressive, 21st-century citizens.

You are taking this game way too seriously. NOTHING in it is to be taken seriously. Men and women are both treated unfairly in it (along with pretty much every culture, ethnicity, and race).

If we're going to take any game seriously then it should be GTA - if only for the fact that through its massive sales it is at the forefront of gaming culture in the popular media. Certainly part of the point of it poking fun at all aspects of society (as you highlight) is that it has some sort of comment to make about society in general - should we just ignore that commentary?

Sure it's a game, it's entertainment, but at the same point GTA has always (or at least since its arrival in the 3D realm) had some sort of social commentary to make and I think we'd be doing it a disservice to ignore that - that's part of what makes it fun to play, the satirical introspection (well in my opinion at least).

For me at least it is important to take games somewhat seriously, otherwise they're just random button presses to solve an abstract problem - that's no fun in my book. Still I recognise that not everyone will hold my view of things - I like it when my entertainment offers me something which makes me think, I like to walk away from a game/movie/book with questions about what I've experienced and if they're saying something important.

I think it is more likely that alot of the outrage that is generated comes from the news media and special interest groups fanning the flames and they have found other more profitable things to exploit than just violent video games at the moment.

As for female characters, I think it is kind of searching for a reason to generate some kind of controversy, there are plenty of genres in other media like books and movies that don't typically have female leads. I don't agree with this kind of discussion since it is usually based on some misguided idea of inclusion, when really I just see it as someone trying to impose their ideas on the creator, which is wrong.

Hahaha. Well I am an Anglo-Saxon white male non-gangster who has enjoyed a private dance or two in my time. It can be a good way to blow off steam. I've never actually paid for one but I've got friends who dance. They seem happy enough.

I'm in my mid-fifties and own the four precursors to GTA5, I've got all the COD releases, and The Orange Box. I don't think I've even powered up my XBox since my XBL account expired in 2011.

Yeah, I enjoyed doing some drive-bys on the whores in GTA San Andreas, and used to love playing Call Of Duty, particularly the older versions. But I got tired of being killed by 12-year-old punks screaming expletives at me when their testicles haven't even descended.

In spite of all of that carnage it did not make me want to head to Value Pawn and pick up a Glock. It's all about personal responsibility.

You are taking this game way too seriously. NOTHING in it is to be taken seriously. Men and women are both treated unfairly in it (along with pretty much every culture, ethnicity, and race).

And also, the parts with Jimmy playing video games were HYSTERICAL because they are so, so true...and when Michael threw the chair through the TV I felt like the rage of every person who has ever played vs such people on XBL was behind the weight of that chair.

I think it's still a disappointment that the game itself takes itself too seriously. It makes fun of the gaming and internet culture, of every gender and race around, but oh no we can't buck the trend on the overtly sexual nature of videogames because of the "organic" story. Now they're just pandering to the idiots, rather than making fun of them. I found it pretty lackluster

You are taking this game way too seriously. NOTHING in it is to be taken seriously. Men and women are both treated unfairly in it (along with pretty much every culture, ethnicity, and race).

And also, the parts with Jimmy playing video games were HYSTERICAL because they are so, so true...and when Michael threw the chair through the TV I felt like the rage of every person who has ever played vs such people on XBL was behind the weight of that chair.

I think it's still a disappointment that the game itself takes itself too seriously. It makes fun of the gaming and internet culture, of every gender and race around, but oh no we can't buck the trend on the overtly sexual nature of videogames because of the "organic" story. Now they're just pandering to the idiots, rather than making fun of them. I found it pretty lackluster

If you actually play the game I think you will find that the game is just mirroring real life idiots in a satirical way. It's not their problem if said idiots don't get the joke. (If they did Neo Conservatives might not exist.)

I'd like to see a game like the one Thomas Pynchon describes in his latest novel: cruise around New York shooting-up people who cut in line, shout in the street or wheel around oversized kiddie-strollers. Something like Seinfeld with H&Ks.

"The biggest issue that I've found in my 30+ hours of play is the private dances at strip clubs,"

Why is this an issue?

Prostitution has been preventing all-out riots, rape and murder since the beginning of civilization.

If it were just legal, and totally out in the open it'd be a lot safer for everyone. It's not ever going away if that's what your thinking.

Because strippers are not hookers? I don't care that they put a strip club in, but a stripper isn't going to reward you with sex if you grope her, she's going to call the bouncer, and he's going to break your face. I get that the game is meant to be absurd on a lot of levels, but this plays a little too heavily into objectification.

Actually I think it would be great if the game let you grope the stripper, and then showed the bouncer breaking your face and tossing you out the back door.

"The biggest issue that I've found in my 30+ hours of play is the private dances at strip clubs,"

Why is this an issue?

Prostitution has been preventing all-out riots, rape and murder since the beginning of civilization.

If it were just legal, and totally out in the open it'd be a lot safer for everyone. It's not ever going away if that's what your thinking.

Because strippers are not hookers? I don't care that they put a strip club in, but a stripper isn't going to reward you with sex if you grope her, she's going to call the bouncer, and he's going to break your face. I get that the game is meant to be absurd on a lot of levels, but this plays a little too heavily into objectification.

Actually I think it would be great if the game let you grope the stripper, and then showed the bouncer breaking your face and tossing you out the back door.

Don't you think the stripper in question would complain to the bouncer that's only 20 ft away behind a curtain if she had a problem with it? And in the game it's HER asking you to come back to her place.

And if you get caught touching you DO get thrown out. But that has nothing to do with the issue of whether touching is good/bad or whether prostitution (willing prostitution) is good/bad. That's simply the club covering it's ass for what SOCIETY/LAW currently considers "bad."

Only somewhat related, but why is that anytime someone shows a desire for more games that don't have yet another straight-white-macho-male-A as the main character, everyone starts to get all irritated and offended with that same typical arguments?

I use to think that the development community was underestimating the audience, but the internet has proof to the contrary.

"The biggest issue that I've found in my 30+ hours of play is the private dances at strip clubs,"

Why is this an issue?

Prostitution has been preventing all-out riots, rape and murder since the beginning of civilization.

If it were just legal, and totally out in the open it'd be a lot safer for everyone. It's not ever going away if that's what your thinking.

Because strippers are not hookers? I don't care that they put a strip club in, but a stripper isn't going to reward you with sex if you grope her, she's going to call the bouncer, and he's going to break your face. I get that the game is meant to be absurd on a lot of levels, but this plays a little too heavily into objectification.

Actually I think it would be great if the game let you grope the stripper, and then showed the bouncer breaking your face and tossing you out the back door.

Don't you think the stripper in question would complain to the bouncer that's only 20 ft away behind a curtain if she had a problem with it? And in the game it's HER asking you to come back to her place.

Except isn't this with EVERY stripping you can get a dance from? My my my, apparently they are all damaged whores of entirely DIFFERENT type!

Only somewhat related, but why is that anytime someone shows a desire for more games that don't have yet another straight-white-macho-male-A as the main character, everyone starts to get all irritated and offended with that same typical arguments?

I use to think that the development community was underestimating the audience, but the internet has proof to the contrary.

Use-to-being-catered-to and echo-chambers and all that, I guess...

I think that's BEGINNING to change as the media matures. We have to go through the "macho female" thing first though. (New Lara Croft... etc)

I still don't understand why the torture scene was hard to endure. Everyone (should) knows when going into a GTA game, that it will be shrouded in parody and satire. The fact that you could water board the guy with gasoline, then proceed to shock him with a car battery and not cause a fire should indicate that it's just pure GTA ridiculousness.

People who try to read too far into the actions in GTA are thoroughly missing the point. It is supposed to mock real life as strongly as possible. Heck, the in game ads talking about how being a violent criminal is an advantage to being a corrections officer. It's so clearly and obviously and unabashed satire and parody.. reading into it as being literal dilutes the point.

I still don't understand why the torture scene was hard to endure. Everyone (should) knows when going into a GTA game, that it will be shrouded in parody and satire. The fact that you could water board the guy with gasoline, then proceed to shock him with a car battery and not cause a fire should indicate that it's just pure GTA ridiculousness.

People who try to read too far into the actions in GTA are thoroughly missing the point. It is supposed to mock real life as strongly as possible. Heck, the in game ads talking about how being a violent criminal is an advantage to being a corrections officer. It's so clearly and obviously and unabashed satire and parody.. reading into it as being literal dilutes the point.

I think much of the critiques of the game are not missing the point, they are criticizing the satire and parody, not failing to see it.

Getting tired of all these so called ''reviews" for GTA 5 written by PC hipsters.

The game is supposed to be satire, and the fact that out of all the horrible things that can happen in this game, they choose to focus on the issue of women being portrayed as less than ideal, just goes to show how cancerous for today's society PC has become.

Only somewhat related, but why is that anytime someone shows a desire for more games that don't have yet another straight-white-macho-male-A as the main character, everyone starts to get all irritated and offended with that same typical arguments?

I use to think that the development community was underestimating the audience, but the internet has proof to the contrary.

Use-to-being-catered-to and echo-chambers and all that, I guess...

I think that's BEGINNING to change as the media matures. We have to go through the "macho female" thing first though. (New Lara Croft... etc)

Except that, and every other example to the contratry (of 'yet another straight-white-macho-male-A'), is few and far between and most people giving these examples are basically cherry picking.

But yes, I do get your point and the humor. Shit, if these ARE the steps - bring on the macho woman! lol I guess macho gay guys will come afterwards.

Only somewhat related, but why is that anytime someone shows a desire for more games that don't have yet another straight-white-macho-male-A as the main character, everyone starts to get all irritated and offended with that same typical arguments?

I use to think that the development community was underestimating the audience, but the internet has proof to the contrary.

Use-to-being-catered-to and echo-chambers and all that, I guess...

I think that's BEGINNING to change as the media matures. We have to go through the "macho female" thing first though. (New Lara Croft... etc)

Except that, and every other example to the contratry (of 'yet another straight-white-macho-male-A'), is few and far between and most people giving these examples are basically cherry picking.

But yes, I do get your point and the humor. Shit, if these ARE the steps - bring on the macho woman! lol I guess macho gay guys will come afterwards.

Oh that would be FABULOUS! (Triple-snap!)

I can see it now... Driving around town "capping fools" for wearing the "totally wrong shoes with that!"

(Joking of course.)

Actually I think a gay character like "Jinks" from Warehouse 13 would be a great archetype for a gay GTA character.

GTA V is more than just a video game. It is, by way of its representation of violence and glorification therein, the greatest advertisement *against* violence and objectification. While the bang-bang, boom-boom nature of the action is exciting, the game doesn't shy away from showing the consequences for their actions. The sad, hollow lives led by the "protagonists", while seeming glitzy and exciting on the surface, resonate loudly with how very empty they are.

Trevor is alone. Michael is alone. Franklin is alone. Even though they have each other, they aren't enough bullets or brass knuckles that can make these men truly happy.

I'm roughly 60% of the way through the campaign and I've found the gaming portion to be absolutely brilliant, and the story to be doubly so. Yes, you can bang a hooker. Yes, you can steal a military chopper or tank and go on a killing spree.

But the first time you find yourself obeying traffic laws and deciding to just head home instead of to the strip club because it's been a long day... that's when you realize what Rockstar has done. They've created something special here, and despite the fact that it may not be "open" or "inclusive" it still deserves to be played by everyone (over the age of 18).

Only somewhat related, but why is that anytime someone shows a desire for more games that don't have yet another straight-white-macho-male-A as the main character, everyone starts to get all irritated and offended with that same typical arguments?

I use to think that the development community was underestimating the audience, but the internet has proof to the contrary.

Use-to-being-catered-to and echo-chambers and all that, I guess...

There are games like this for people who are into this sort of thing. There are games like Mass Effect where you can, if you want, play a non-sexualized female of any ethnicity with a variety of personalities (and as an added bonus, the female Commander Shepard has much better voice acting than the male one). I much prefer the latter, but that doesn't mean all consumers want that as their gaming experience, and that doesn't mean all devs should cater only to the latter audience.

Only somewhat related, but why is that anytime someone shows a desire for more games that don't have yet another straight-white-macho-male-A as the main character, everyone starts to get all irritated and offended with that same typical arguments?

I use to think that the development community was underestimating the audience, but the internet has proof to the contrary.

Use-to-being-catered-to and echo-chambers and all that, I guess...

There are games like this for people who are into this sort of thing. There are games like Mass Effect where you can, if you want, play a non-sexualized female of any ethnicity with a variety of personalities (and as an added bonus, the female Commander Shepard has much better voice acting than the male one). I much prefer the latter, but that doesn't mean all consumers want that as their gaming experience, and that doesn't mean all devs should cater only to the latter audience.

Precisely. The flaw in the whargarbl that inevitably comes up about GTA or similar games is that it's always sourced from some fictional world where open-world-GTA-clones are the only games around. Hell, they're not even common. It takes a ton of resources to make a good one, so there really aren't that many of them.

If you don't like GTA-style games, your alternative is very close to being *every other game ever created*.